Macondo cleanup officially ends off three states

BP PLC and the US Coast Guard report that cleanup work from the Macondo oil spill has ended in Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, but BP said cleanup operations continue along 84 miles of Louisiana’s coast.

USCG continues to respond to reports of oil washing up anywhere along the Gulf Coast. BP said it takes responsibility for removing oil associated with the deepwater Macondo well blowout of April 2010. The blowout off Louisiana resulted in a massive oil spill in the gulf after an explosion that killed 11 workers on Transocean Ltd.’s Deepwater Horizon semisubmersible. The semi later sank.

“This is another important step towards meeting our goal of returning the shoreline to as close to pre-spill conditions as possible while managing the scale of the response to meet conditions on the ground,” USCG Capt. Duke Walker said.

The Federal On-Scene Coordinator for the Macondo oil spill has announced that the Gulf Coast Incident Management Team has started transitioning back to National Response Center reporting. NRC serves as the national point of contact for reporting all oil, chemical, radiological, biological, and etiological discharges into the environment.

BP has spent more than $14 billion on response and cleanup activities.

“The transition is a significant milestone toward fulfilling our commitment to clean the gulf shoreline and ensuring that the region’s residents and visitors can fully enjoy this majestic environment,” said Laura Folse, BP executive vice-president, response and environmental restoration.

BP said teams surveyed nearly 4,000 miles of shoreline after the spill, identifying 1,100 miles affected by oil.

The Deepwater Horizon Joint Investigation Team released its final report on Sept. 14, 2011, saying the blowout stemmed from multiple causes and decisions involving BP and contractors Transocean and Halliburton Co. (OGJ Online, Oct. 11, 2012).